Mouse Party is a flash application put out by the University of Utah Genetics Learning Center which takes an interesting look at the effects of drugs on mice.

Take a look inside the brains of mice on drugs!  Every drug of abuse has its own unique molecular mechanism.  You'll learn how these various drugs disrupt the synapse to make the user feel "high".

US geneticists have discovered an unknown kind of twins which they have called semi-identical -- the twins are identical on their mother's side, but only share half of their father's DNA.

The twins are technically chimeras: that is, their cells are not genetically uniform. Some cells contain male cells with an X and Y chromosome, others have female cells bearing a double load of Xs. In the journal Human Genetics, the researchers report that the proportion of XY and XX cells varies depending on the kind of tissue being examined.
For the genes to be distributed in this way, two sperm cells must have fertilised a single egg. Some DNA from each sperm is present in each child.

We started off a great autism discussion on my last autism post, Vaccines and Autism. Our discussion did not dive into the mercury debate, per se, but it did bring up some thoughts about the possibility of a link between genetics and autism. Jessi shared her family's experience with autism; She has three cousins with autism and two of those cousins are brothers. All three cousins share similar characteristics of this disorder. If you would like to share your family's experience with autism, please share them in the comments or email me--I'd love to hear your story.

While we are on the subject of genetics, here is an article that discusses how a "defective neuroligin gene, which affects the firing of neurons, might be related to autism."